The Devil and human beings

The Devil is an evil spiritual being who wants to persuade human beings to rebel against God or at least to forget all about God.  Jesus called the Devil the “father of lies” (NRSV, John 8:44), and his biggest lie of all is that there is no Devil so that people are not on their guard against him.  So it is that the human race has loved to do wrong.  Instead of loving God, people lie and steal and harm one another.  We all know how others have made us unhappy and how we have done exactly the same to them.

The Devil and human beings between them account for a great deal of suffering and pain in the world but, though God allows it to go on, he can bring good out of it.  Sometimes, as a result of suffering, people turn to God when they have forgotten all about him.  When we die there will only be one thing that can make us happy, and that is to love God and to be loved by him.  If we do not learn to love him now, it may be too late when we die – we may find we are unable to love him best of all.  Yet, only one thing can make us happy in the end, and that is to love him best.  That is why he created us.

Do you remember the story of the Prodigal Son that Jesus told? (Luke 15:11-32).  In that story the son left his home and went off with a lot of money to a far country.  There he wasted all his money on bad companions who could never make him happy.  It was only when he was in desperate difficulties that he decided to go back home.  If it had not been for the problems he faced he might never have returned to the happiness of his own home.  So although suffering and pain were not part of God’s good creation, when we do suffer it can bring us back to him, the source of all true happiness. 

Yet whatever the Devil or human beings may do now, God is stronger than them all and that is why, if you really want to love God, no one can pluck you out of his hand either in this world or the next.  In the end evil will have no power to hurt.  The Devil and evil people who don’t turn back to God will have no place in Heaven – indeed they wouldn’t want to be there.